LIE, Trygve (1896-1968). In The Cause of Peace. Seven Years with the United Nations, New York, 1954, large 8vo, original cloth. FIRST EDITION, IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author to Anthony Eden.

LIE, Trygve (1896-1968).  In the Cause of Peace. Seven Years with the United Nations. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954. Large 8vo (210 x 140mm). Half title, half tone frontispiece portrait of the author. Original two-tone cloth, spine lettered in white (without the dust-jacket). Provenance: Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (modern armorial bookplate loosely-inserted). FIRST EDITION, IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY, the front free endpaper inscribed, "H. E. Mr Anthony Eden. Dear Mr Eden, I hope you or your charming wife will get a chance to read the book. My [?]desire is that it will serve our common ideas and cause, Yours Trygve Lie, [illegible Norwegian place-name], Norway, August 9th, 1954." The author was the Norwegian Foreign Minister during the Norwegian Government's exile in London from 1940-45 and, from 1946 to 1952, the first Secretary-General of the United Nations. On p.11 of the book, the author describes (in print) his relationship with Anthony Eden and the high esteem in which he held him: "During the war I had formed a warm friendship with Anthony Eden. I had known and admired his courageous stand against the prevailing mood of his own Conservative party in the later 1920's, his opposition to appeasement and effort to revitalize the League of Nations and make it a real force for collective security against aggression before it was too late ... Now he was out of office as Foreign Secretary, and I regarded him as an ideal choice for Secretary-General [i.e. of the United Nations]. I am not sure that he would have accepted, but he did not object when I told him I should like to sound out the Labor[sic] Government and Moscow."